TechCrunchhttps://techcrunch.com
TechCrunch is a group-edited blog that profiles the companies, products and events defining and transforming the new web.Thu, 24 May 2018 18:37:14 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.6http://www.techcrunch.comhttp://www.techcrunch.com/wp-content/themes/techcrunchmu/images/techcrunch_logo.pngTechCrunch136296444Subscribe with My Yahoo!Subscribe with NewsGatorSubscribe with My AOLSubscribe with BloglinesSubscribe with NetvibesSubscribe with GoogleSubscribe with PageflakesThis is an XML content feed. It is intended to be viewed in a newsreader or syndicated to another site.And the winner of Startup Battlefield Europe at VivaTech is… Winglyhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/4F4QWCbcW7M/
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/wingly-wins-startup-battlefield-europe-at-vivatech/#respondThu, 24 May 2018 18:27:05 +0000https://techcrunch.com/?p=1645334At the very beginning, there were 15 startups. After a morning of incredibly fierce competition, we now have a winner.

Startups participating in the Startup Battlefield have all been hand-picked to participate in our highly competitive startup competition. They all presented in front of multiple groups of VCs and tech leaders serving as judges for a chance to win €25,000 and an all-expense paid trip for two to San Francisco to participate in the Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch’s flagship event, Disrupt SF 2018.

After many deliberations, TechCrunch editors pored over the judges’ notes and narrowed the list down to five finalists: Glowee, IOV, Mapify, Wakeo and Wingly.

These startups made their way to the finale to demo in front of our final panel of judges, which included: Brent Hoberman (Founders Factory), Liron Azrielant (Meron Capital), Keld van Schreven (KR1), Roxanne Varza (Station F), Yann de Vries (Atomico) and Matthew Panzarino (TechCrunch).

And now, meet the Startup Battlefield Europe at VivaTech winner.

Winner: Wingly

Wingly is a flight-sharing platform that connects pilots and passengers. Private pilots can add flights they have planned, then potential passengers can book them.

Runner-Up: IOV

IOV is building a decentralized DNS for blockchains. By implementing the Blockchain Communication Protocol, the IOV Wallet will be the first wallet that can receive and exchange any kind of cryptocurrency from a single address of value.

]]>https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/wingly-wins-startup-battlefield-europe-at-vivatech/feed/01645334https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/wingly-wins-startup-battlefield-europe-at-vivatech/Some low-cost Android phones shipped with malware built inhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/Z81azBpOiG4/
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/some-low-cost-android-phones-shipped-with-malware-built-in/#respondThu, 24 May 2018 18:23:58 +0000https://techcrunch.com/?p=1645554Avast has found that many low-cost, non-Google-certifed Android phones shipped with a strain of malware built in that could send users to download apps they didn’t intend to access. The malware, called called Cosiloon, overlays advertisements over the operating system in order to promote apps or even trick users into downloading apps. Devices effected shipped from ZTE, Archos and myPhone.

The app consists of a dropper and a payload. “The dropper is a small application with no obfuscation, located on the /system partition of affected devices. The app is completely passive, only visible to the user in the list of system applications under ‘settings.’ We have seen the dropper with two different names, ‘CrashService’ and ‘ImeMess,'” wrote Avast. The dropper then connects with a website to grab the payloads that the hackers wish to install on the phone. “The XML manifest contains information about what to download, which services to start and contains a whitelist programmed to potentially exclude specific countries and devices from infection. However, we’ve never seen the country whitelist used, and just a few devices were whitelisted in early versions. Currently, no countries or devices are whitelisted. The entire Cosiloon URL is hardcoded in the APK.”

The dropper is part of the system’s firmware and is not easily removed.

To summarize:

The dropper can install application packages defined by the manifest downloaded via an unencrypted HTTP connection without the user’s consent or knowledge.
The dropper is preinstalled somewhere in the supply chain, by the manufacturer, OEM or carrier.
The user cannot remove the dropper, because it is a system application, part of the device’s firmware.

Avast can detect and remove the payloads and they recommend following these instructions to disable the dropper. If the dropper spots antivirus software on your phone it will actually stop notifications but it will still recommend downloads as you browse in your default browser, a gateway to grabbing more (and worse) malware. Engadget notes that this vector is similar to the Lenovo “Superfish” exploit that shipped thousands of computers with malware built in.

]]>https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/some-low-cost-android-phones-shipped-with-malware-built-in/feed/01645554https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/some-low-cost-android-phones-shipped-with-malware-built-in/Uber in fatal crash detected pedestrian but had emergency braking disabledhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/-grj5ccsdxA/
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/uber-in-fatal-crash-detected-pedestrian-but-had-emergency-braking-disabled/#respondThu, 24 May 2018 18:18:59 +0000https://techcrunch.com/?p=1645507The initial report by the National Transportation Safety Board on the fatal self-driving Uber crash in March confirms that the car detected the pedestrian as early as 6 seconds before the crash, but did not slow or stop because its emergency braking systems were deliberately disabled.

Uber told the NTSB that “emergency braking maneuvers are not enabled while the vehicle is under computer control, to reduce the potential for erratic vehicle behavior,” in other words to ensure a smooth ride. “The vehicle operator is relied on to intervene and take action. The system is not designed to alert the operator.” It’s not clear why the emergency braking capability even exists if it is disabled while the car is in operation. The Volvo model’s built-in safety systems — collision avoidance and emergency braking, among other things — are also disabled while in autonomous mode.

It appears that in an emergency situation like this this “self-driving car” is no better, or substantially worse, than many normal cars already on the road.

It’s hard to understand the logic of this decision. An emergency is exactly the situation when the self-driving car, and not the driver, should be taking action. Its long-range sensors can detect problems accurately from much further away, while its 360-degree awareness and route planning allow it to make safe maneuvers that a human would not be able to do in time. Humans, even when their full attention is on the road, are not the best at catching these things; relying only on them in the most dire circumstances that require quick response times and precise maneuvering seems an incomprehensible and deeply irresponsible decision.

According to the NTSB report, the vehicle first registered Elaine Herzberg on lidar 6 seconds before the crash — at the speed it was traveling, that puts first contact at about 378 feet away. She was first identified as an unknown object, then a vehicle, then a bicycle, over the next few seconds (it isn’t stated when these classifications took place exactly).

The car following the collision.

During these 6 seconds, the driver could and should have been alerted of an anomalous object ahead on the left — whether it was a deer, a car, or a bike, it was entering or could enter the road and should be attended to. But the system did not warn the driver and apparently had no way to.

1.3 seconds before impact, which is to say about 80 feet away, the Uber system decided that an emergency braking procedure would be necessary to avoid Herzberg. But it did not hit the brakes, as the emergency braking system had been disabled, nor did it warn the driver because, again, it couldn’t.

It reflects extremely poorly on Uber that it had disabled the car’s ability to respond in an emergency — though it was authorized to speed at night — and no method for the system to alert the driver should it detect something important. This isn’t just a safety issue, like going on the road with a sub-par lidar system or without checking the headlights — it’s a failure of judgement by Uber, and one that cost a person’s life.

Over the course of the last two months, we’ve worked closely with the NTSB. As their investigation continues, we’ve initiated our own safety review of our self-driving vehicles program. We’ve also brought on former NTSB Chair Christopher Hart to advise us on our overall safety culture, and we look forward to sharing more on the changes we’ll make in the coming weeks.

]]>https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/uber-in-fatal-crash-detected-pedestrian-but-had-emergency-braking-disabled/feed/01645507https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/uber-in-fatal-crash-detected-pedestrian-but-had-emergency-braking-disabled/Facebook and Instagram launch U.S. political ad labeling and archivehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/mWtoXEhTkog/
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/facebook-political-ad-archive/#respondThu, 24 May 2018 18:01:20 +0000https://techcrunch.com/?p=1645522Facebook today revealed that it’s chosen not to shut down all political ads because that could unfairly favor incumbents and candidates without resources to buy pricey TV ads. Instead, it’s now launching its previously announced “paid for by” labels on political and issue ads on Facebook and Instagram in the US, and its publicly searchable archive of all these politics-related ads that run in the US. That includes ads run by news publishers or others that promote articles with political content.

The labeling won’t just apply to candidate and election ads, but those dealing with political issues such as “abortion, guns, immigration or foreign policy”. Clicking through the labels that appear at the top of these News Feed ads will lead to the archive, which isn’t backdated and will only include ads from early May 2018 and after. The archive will hold them for seven years so they can be searched by keyword or Page who ran them. It will also display the ad’s budget, the and the number of people who saw it, plus aggregated, anonymized data on their age, gender, and location.

A look at ads run by Donald Trump’s official page inside Facebook’s new political ad archive

Any advertiser that wants to run political ads must now go through Facebook’s authorization process that requires them to reveal their identity and location, and advertisers will only have a week’s grace period starting today before those unauthorized will have their ads paused. Facebook plans to monitor political ads with a combination of artificial intelligence and 3000 to 4000 newly-hired ad reviewers as part of its doubling of its security team from 10,000 to 20,000 this year.

An example of a “Paid for by” label on an Instagram ad

They reviewers and AI will analyze these ads’ images, text, and the outside websites they point to look for political content. They’ll seek to avoid bias in classification by following guidelines on what constitutes one of 20 political issues from the decades-running Comparative Agendas Project. Users may also report unlabeled ads, which will then be reviewed, paused, and archived if they’re deemed political. Their buyer will then be required to go through the authorization process before they can buy more.

Facebook plans to provide a database available via a forthcoming API that will let watchdog groups, academics, and researchers review how ads are being used to influence elections. These tools will open to other countries in the following months, and Facebook plans to make all ads visible to everyone through a tool launching in June that’s now testing in Ireland and Canada.

Facebook’s chief product officer Chris Cox writes that “We hope that in aggregate these changes will be a big step to improve the quality of civic engagement in our products, and to keep the public discourse strong.”

Facebook held a conference call to discuss the launch with reporters this morning, but unfortunately timed it to end just 15 minutes before the news went out. You can listen to that call below, and we’ll have more analysis shortly.

Concerns With Facebook’s Push For Ad Transparency

While the labels and archive are good step towards transparency, there are still a number of problems with the program. Most specifically, while the political action committees and organizations that often fund political ads can have confusing or misleading names that obscure their true purpose. Simply listing those organizations in the Paid For By labels or archive won’t necessarily give users a lot of information about who the people behind the money are unless they’re willing to go digging across internet themselves.

Another issue is who will have access to the archive API, since the Cambridge Analytica scandal all started with an academic researcher accessing Facebook data.

“We won’t always get it right. We know we’ll miss some ads and in other cases we’ll identify some we shouldn’t” write Facebook’s Global Politics and Government Outreach Director Katie Harbath and Director of Public Policy Steve Satterfield.

These are the exact kind of tools and labels Facebook should have offered as soon as it began touting its ability to influence elections with its ads over a half decade ago. Better late than never, though.

]]>https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/facebook-political-ad-archive/feed/01645522https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/facebook-political-ad-archive/Google opens its G Suite for Education to home-school co-opshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/bOc4pn4Ux-M/
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/google-opens-its-g-suite-for-education-to-home-school-co-ops/#respondThu, 24 May 2018 17:23:19 +0000https://techcrunch.com/?p=1645452Google today announced it is changing the eligibility guidelines of its free G Suite for Education service to include home-school co-ops. Parents and teachers who run home-school co-ops will be able to sign up for it in the coming weeks.

G Suite for Education includes all of Google’s usual online productivity tools and then layers a number of education-specific services like Classroom on top of that. Google Classroom, it’s worth noting, was already available to any G Suite user, but to subscribe to G Suite for Education, you needed to be affiliated with a school or school district. Now, home-school co-ops will be able to verify their status and get access to G Suite for Education, too.

“Through technology, home-school co-op teachers can set and change assignments on the fly, students can work together even if geographically separated, and everyone has a common format for collaboration,” writes Darren Jones of the Home School Legal Defense Association, in today’s announcement. “It’s because of this potential that I’ve been working closely with Google this year to make sure that home-school co-ops have the same access as other schools to G Suite for Education.”

Google has piloted this program with a number of co-ops in recent months. Given that these groups function a bit like traditional schools, with some being more formal than others, I can see how access to a shared and integrated set of tools would be useful there.

]]>https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/google-opens-its-g-suite-for-education-to-home-school-co-ops/feed/01645452https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/google-opens-its-g-suite-for-education-to-home-school-co-ops/Dog-sitting startup Rover just raised $155Mhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/FQdbnb7vMZs/
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/dog-sitting-startup-rover-just-raised-155m/#respondThu, 24 May 2018 17:21:33 +0000https://techcrunch.com/?p=1645489Rover, a dog-walking and dog-boarding service that merged with DogVacay around this time last year, is now the second of such startups this year to raise a massive new round of funding with its announcement of a $155 million financing round.

While competitor Wag has become a juggernaut, there seems room for both room for a second player and the potential to outmaneuver Wag even with its massive influx of capital. Both DogVacay and Rover had a very similar model and eventually merged in an all-stock deal, creating a more substantial competitor for Wag. The round consisted of $125 million in equity financing led by funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, with a $30 million credit facility with Silicon Valley Bank. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the round values Rover at $970 million.

Wag earlier this year picked up $300 million in a massive funding round led by SoftBank. That was, of course, SoftBank — which is investing massive piles of capital into startups and pretty much altering the calculus of venture capital in the process. But it also signaled a huge interest in various dog-care services, including apparently Rover, as a potential business opportunity for the millions of dog owners in the world. If you’ll walk anywhere in San Francisco, you’re destined to run into a very large number of very good dogs, and it makes enough sense that there should be an opportunity to capitalize on dog-ownership as a whole.

Rover connects dog owners with various users that will walk, board, or generally take care of dogs — a critical service for anyone who might be traveling, or just work in a non-dog friendly office. Users just book a dog walker or sitter through the app, which connects them with area sitters. It’s an area where Wag has faced a lot of criticism following a major Bloomberg report regarding poor service (and losing dogs). There are, of course, many challenges for any service that offloads some kind of daily need to a third party starting in a similar fashion to Uber.

Rover, interestingly, notes on its website that it “accepts less than 20% of potential sitters,” perhaps a dig at the criticism for Wag or the space in general and as an attempt to soothe concerns from potential users. Rover says it has more than 200,000 sitters throughout North America. The company previously raised $156 million, and previous investors include A-Grade Investments, Foundry Group, Madrona Venture Group, Menlo Ventures, OMERS Ventures, Petco, and StepStone Group.

]]>https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/dog-sitting-startup-rover-just-raised-155m/feed/01645489https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/dog-sitting-startup-rover-just-raised-155m/Inside Facebook’s anti-sex trafficking hackathonhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/ho8_QcFCUZ4/
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/facebook-child-safety/#commentsThu, 24 May 2018 16:30:31 +0000https://techcrunch.com/?p=1645354Tech giants put their rivalries aside for two days this week to code for a common cause: protecting children on the internet. Deep inside Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters, teams drawn from Uber, Twitter, Google, Microsoft and Pinterest worked through the night to prototype new tools designed to help nonprofits in their fight against child sex trafficking.

Much of their work from Facebook’s third annual child safety hackathon is actually too sensitive to publish. To stay one step ahead of the criminals, the specifics of how these tools track traffickers and missing children across websites must be kept secret. But the resulting products, all donated to NGOs like Thorn and the Internet Watch Foundation, could help tech companies rally a united front against those who’d seek to hurt kids.

“The thing with work on safety and security and fighting abuse is it’s an area where the industry is collaborative,” says Guy Rosen, Facebook’s VP of product management and one of the event’s judges. “Hackathons are a great way to bring people together to actually bootstrap some of these ideas . . . ensuring that the engineers who have the smart ideas can actually understand the pain points and apply that thinking to these problems.”

The winner of 2016’s hackathon has grown into an invaluable resource for groups like the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The “child finder” tool matches online photos, like those on escort service listings, to NCMEC’s database of missing children. It helps reduce law enforcement’s response time so they can deploy officers in hopes of rescuing these kids.

While Facebook has recently been criticized for its dominance in social networking and approach to data privacy, its size affords it the resources to spearhead projects like this. And because it’s already accustomed to hacking on scaled tools, teaming up with NGOs and other web platforms can let the fruits of 10 years of labor around child safety be passed on to those who couldn’t build them themselves.

“It benefits no company if the general perception is that the internet is not a safe place,” says Facebook’s global head of safety Antigone Davis. “All of us have an individual interest as well as the industry’s interest in ensuring that not only people perceive it as a safe place but that it is a safe place.”

Amongst the projects at this year’s hackathon was a way to use machine vision to identify people and other distinguishing features in photos from sites known to be used for sex trafficking. Artificial intelligence can help take some of the burden off human investigators who can be emotionally taxed by constantly viewing images of the exploited.

The winning project, called “Spotting Trends,” uses clustering analysis to keep tabs on traffickers as they move around the internet. Referring to the recent termination of a popular online prostitution marketplace, Rosen told the hackathon attendees that “Backpage coming down is a big event, but the bad guys are still out there.”

The Spotting Trends team wasn’t awarded a giant novelty check or some golden trophy. Instead, they’ll get the opportunity to present their work at the big Dallas Crimes Against Children Conference, which last year drew more than 4,300 professionals from the safety industry.

“The kind of folks that come to this, they’re really motivated and really proud ofthe work because as internet companies we operate at the scale of hundreds of millions or billions of users. But when youdo this work, you hear those individual stories,” Rosen explains. “Just knowing the things we work on have a real impact on real people is what keeps all these people coming every morning and driven to do really good work.”

Davis concludes, “I think theirs is the quiet behind-the-scenes work that doesn’t get championed nearly enough.”

]]>https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/facebook-child-safety/feed/11645354https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/facebook-child-safety/Microsoft’s Twitch rival Mixer gets a revamp, including new developer tools for interactive gameplayhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/fnhAHH6UM40/
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/microsofts-twitch-rival-mixer-gets-a-revamp-including-new-developer-tools-for-interactive-gameplay/#respondThu, 24 May 2018 16:09:36 +0000https://techcrunch.com/?p=1645349Microsoft is celebrating the one-year anniversary of its game streaming service and Twitch competitor, Mixer, with a host of new features, including a refresh of the user experience and the launch of an expanded developer toolkit called MixPlay. The new streamer tools will roll out along with the revamped version of Mixer .com across desktop and mobile web, and will initially be available to Mixer Pro subscribers.

The company claims the service saw more than 10 million monthly active users in December 2017 – a figure, we should point out, may be higher because of holiday sales and the accompanying bump in game downloads and playtime seen across platforms.

However, Microsoft also says that the Mixer viewing audience has grown over four times since its launch, and the number of watched streams has grown more than five times. These are still not hard numbers, but third-party reports have put Mixer well behind Twitch’s sizable and still-growing lead in terms of both concurrent streamers and viewers. (Those reports aren’t 100% accurate either, though, because they can’t track Xbox viewership.)

Microsoft says the updated Mixer.com rolls out beginning today, with a focus on making it easier for viewers to find the games and streamers they want to watch, as well as those broadcasting in creative communities.

While Pro subscribers will gain access first, they’ll have to opt-in by visiting their Account Settings and turning the new look on manually. (To do so, select the “Site Version” dialog, then the “Feature/UI Refresh” option, Microsoft says.)

The full refresh will arrive to all Mixer users later this summer.

As part of the new experience, the company is also rolling out more tools for developers with the launch of MixPlay.

As Microsoft explains, instead of just adding buttons below a stream, MixPlay lets developers build experiences on top of streams, in panels on the sides of the video, as widgets around the video, or as free-floating overlays – all of which can be designed to mimic the look-and-feel of the streamed content. Basically, this means the entire window is now a canvas, not just a portion of the stream itself.

One example of what MixPlay can enable can be seen in April’s launch of Mixer’s “Share Controller” feature, which created a virtual Xbox controller that could be shared by anyone broadcasting from their Xbox One.

This allowed gamers and viewers to play along in real-time from the web.

In addition, MixPlay will enable other games that are only playable on Mixer where controls blend into the stream – like Mini Golf, which launched this month and now has 300,000 views, or Truck Stars, for example.

Three new MixPlay-enabled games are launching today, as well, including Earthfall, which lets viewers interact with streamers or even change the game; Next Up Hero, where viewers can help a streamer by taking control or freeze the streamer at the worst possible moment, depending on their mood; and Late Shift, a choose-your-own-adventure crime thriller you control.

These sorts of MixPlay experiences shift the idea of Mixer being just another game streaming service to one where viewers can actively participate by playing themselves, or at least guiding the action. That could also serve as a differentiator for Mixer as it tries to carve out a niche for itself in the battle with Twitch and YouTube Gaming.

But MixPlay isn’t just for interactive experiences, Microsoft notes. It can also help developers build experiences that simply enhance streams with additional content, too, like a stats dashboard.

Another update involves the Mixer Create app, which offers mobile support to streamers. Now, streamers can kick of a co-stream by clicking the co-stream button on their Mixer Create profile, then send out invites, among other things.

This is live on Android in beta today, and will launch soon on iOS beta, with a full rollout in early June.

In terms of perks, Microsoft is running an “anniversary” promotion offering $5 of Microsoft Store credit along with any Direct Purchase of $9.99 or more. A second promotion is giving away a free, 1-month channel subscription and up to 90 days of Mixer Pro to anyone who reaches Level 10 on their account between May 24th, 2018 at 12:00AM UST and May 28th, 2018 at 11:59PM PDT.

The company additionally announced a new partnership with ESL on esports, which will bring over 15,000 hours of programming from top competitive games to Mixer, including Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, League of Legends, and Dota 2. These tournaments will take advantage of Mixer’s FTL technology for “sub-second latency,” the company says.

Other announcements around games and esports are mentioned in the Mixer blog post, too.

]]>https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/microsofts-twitch-rival-mixer-gets-a-revamp-including-new-developer-tools-for-interactive-gameplay/feed/01645349https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/microsofts-twitch-rival-mixer-gets-a-revamp-including-new-developer-tools-for-interactive-gameplay/Vevo will shutter apps, in order to focus on YouTubehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/hQyuEgaeoiA/
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/vevo-will-shutter-apps-in-order-to-focus-on-youtube/#respondThu, 24 May 2018 16:06:10 +0000https://techcrunch.com/?p=1645406YouTube has long been the key to Vevo’s music syndication services, and in a blog post today, the company announced plans to focus even more on the site. The effort, which finds Vevo, “focused on engaging the biggest audiences and pursuing growth opportunities,” also involves trimming away some of the elements it deems unnecessary to that strategy.

On the chopping block are Vevo’s iOS, Android and Windows apps, along with the consumer-facing side of its own site. “To be most effective in achieving those goals,” Vevo writes, “we will phase out elements of our owned and operated platforms.”

Those who have been viewing service’s content through its proprietary offering will get access to tools for importing things like playlists to YouTube. Of course, the Universal/Sony/Warner Music-owned service is doing this precisely at the moment that YouTube is launching its own music service to compete with the likes of Spotify.

That ultimately could put a hamper on the company’s plans to essentially put all of its eggs into the YouTube basket. The company hasn’t yet announced what non-YouTube platforms will ultimately be key to its strategy moving forward, though Variety notes that, for now, at least, the company is continuing to offer apps for some smart TVs.

Amazon’s unannounced YouTube competitor could be on the list, as the company looks to provide its own video platform for the Echo. For now, however, Vevo will continue to focus on advertising and original content, as it leans even more heavily on Google’s video service.

]]>https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/vevo-will-shutter-apps-in-order-to-focus-on-youtube/feed/01645406https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/vevo-will-shutter-apps-in-order-to-focus-on-youtube/PayPal starts deeper integration with Google; users can now pay directly in Gmail, YouTube and morehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/IHEUVYFp94s/
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/paypal-starts-deeper-integration-with-google-users-can-now-pay-directly-in-gmail-youtube-and-more/#respondThu, 24 May 2018 16:00:45 +0000https://techcrunch.com/?p=1645266Google earlier this year rebranded all of its payment services under Google Pay to help it double down on making transactions across its platform more frictionless (and more used). Now comes another development: PayPal and Google are kicking off a deep integration, where users who add their PayPal details to their Google Play accounts will be able to pay bills and for other items, using PayPal, without logging in and without leaving the Google services.

The integration, when it goes live later this year, will cover apps like Gmail, YouTube, Google Store and any services using Google Pay — and it will include not just payments but also peer-to-peer transfers.

This is not the first time that Google and PayPal have worked together — the latter has been a payment option in Google Play since 2014, in-store, and in online transactions that were managed by Google and a Google Pay option since last year. And similarly, Google itself has a number of other partners from the payments world, including Braintree, Sripe, Cybersource, Vantiv, Visa and Mastercard.

This new phase of the relationship is interesting for how it benefits both sides. For Google, it will mean that users are less likely to leave Google sites to complete a transaction, potentially never to return; and will give users one more option for how to pay for things, making Google’s own sales more likely to be completed rather than abandoned. For PayPal, it will give users one more easy option for using its rails when buying things, and that will translate into more transaction revenues for PayPal.

We’re in an interesting phase in the world of payments at the moment. The challenge is no longer getting people used to the idea of paying online: a substantial proportion of consumers in developed markets are willing and able to pay for items on digital platforms. The problem is one of trying to capture and keep users’ attention: there are potentially now too many payment options, and too many places for us to visit too easily. The struggle for app publishers, platform owners, and others now is to keep people engaged in your product, rather than migrating elsewhere, which could lead to people abandoning their purchases and also leaving your service for another one.

This is part of the reason why Amazon is so effective: it provides a very seamless and quick way for people to browse and buy things, even more so if you are a Prime subscriber.

In payments, this is translating into a new wave of services where transactions are being enabled at the point at which you need them, with minimal friction: no log-ins, no jumping to new sites or apps, no additional steps. Google and PayPal are not the only ones who are now knitting all of this together more tightly.

I asked Bill Ready, the EVP and COO of PayPal (and previously the co-founder and head of Braintree), why it’s taken this long to get this integration in place on Google. I didn’t get a direct answer, but a hint that although tighter integration is the goal, it’s not always that easy to stitch together services from different silos:

“We are always looking for ways to improve the experience and to make payments even more seamless and secure for our customers wherever they want to pay,” he said. “After the successful launch with Android Pay last year, which built on our existing integration with Google Play, our teams came together to enable this new experience, which will allow customers in the U.S. who add PayPal to any one of Google’s services to be able to pay across the Google ecosystem, anywhere that PayPal is offered as a payment method, with only minimal setup.”

]]>https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/paypal-starts-deeper-integration-with-google-users-can-now-pay-directly-in-gmail-youtube-and-more/feed/01645266https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/paypal-starts-deeper-integration-with-google-users-can-now-pay-directly-in-gmail-youtube-and-more/Pornhub has its own VPN nowhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/3Xn_ggYHvlU/
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/pornhub-has-its-own-vpn-now/#respondThu, 24 May 2018 15:11:10 +0000https://techcrunch.com/?p=1645359Pornhub is diversifying. The most popular site that no one you know will admit to frequenting, is launching its very own VPN service today, called, get this: VPNHub. The app, which is available on Android, iOS, MacOS and Windows, is primarily designed to offer “free and unlimited bandwidth,” according to its creators.

It’s an attempt to circumvent ISP throttling, a potential boon for those who frequently visit sites with lot of video. Sites like, well, PornHub. “With 90 million visitors a day, the vast majority of whom are using devices on the go, it’s especially important that we continue to ensure the privacy of our users,” VP Corey Price said in a statement.

The app is free on the aforementioned mobile platforms, but there’s a premium for desktop users. Another higher tier will drop ads, offer faster connection speeds and provide logins in additional countries, according to the company. That one runs either $13 a month or $90 for a full year subscription.

Of course, there are some privacy concerns to contend with, including some security issues that have arisen in recent months. This WTF is a VPN primer should good you a good overview of what you’re contending with a bit more broadly.

“Assume that all the free VPN apps that you see in the App Store and Google Play are free for a reason,” Romain wrote in the piece. “They’ll analyze your browsing habits, sell them to advertisers, inject their own ads on non-secure pages or steal your identity. You should avoid free VPNs at all costs.”

So, keep that in mind.

If you want to take the leap, however, the service is available now. There’s also a free seven-day trial for the premium version.

]]>https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/pornhub-has-its-own-vpn-now/feed/01645359https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/pornhub-has-its-own-vpn-now/Sinemia, a MoviePass competitor, launches cardless ticketinghttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/MOHZKiiCr9s/
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/sinemia-a-moviepass-competitor-launches-mobile-cardless-icketing/#commentsThu, 24 May 2018 15:04:40 +0000https://techcrunch.com/?p=1644928Sinemia is further differentiating itself from its main competitor, MoviePass. The moviegoing startup is launching a new feature today that gets rid of the need for people to have a physical card in order to purchase movie tickets. This comes after a number of new Sinemia customers reported long wait times for their debit cards to arrive.

“The Cardless feature was in our product pipeline but we accelerated it due to strong demand and issues that it brought,” Sinemia founder and CEO Rifat Oguz said in a statement to TechCrunch.

“We’ve seen incredible demand for our movie ticket subscription service, with many customers wanting to dive right in and buy movie tickets without waiting for a physical card to be shipped to them,” Oguz said in a press release. “At Sinemia, we strive to provide the best moviegoing experience possible while driving the industry forward, and this is just one example of how we’re moving quickly to address our customers’ needs. Sinemia Cardless makes it easier than ever for people to get their movie tickets in advance.”

]]>https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/sinemia-a-moviepass-competitor-launches-mobile-cardless-icketing/feed/11644928https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/sinemia-a-moviepass-competitor-launches-mobile-cardless-icketing/WorkFusion adds $50 million from strategic investors as it bulks up for acquisitionshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/zL0M6N74EXk/
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/workfusion-adds-50-million-from-strategic-investors-as-it-bulks-up-for-acquisitions/#respondThu, 24 May 2018 14:48:16 +0000https://techcrunch.com/?p=1645309WorkFusion, a business process automation software developer, has raised $50 million in a new, strategic round of funding as it prepares to start adding new verticals to its product suite.

The company’s new cash came from the large insurance company, Guardian; healthcare services provider New York-Presbyterian; and the commercial bank, PNC Bank. Venture investor Alpha Intelligence Capital, which specializes in backing artificial intelligence-enabled companies, also participated in the new financing.

Certainly WorkFusion seems to have come a long way since its days hiring crowdsourced workers to train algorithms how to automate the workflows that used to be done manually. The company has raised a lot of money — roughly $121 million, according to Crunchbase — which is some kind of validation, and in its core markets of financial services and insurance it’s attracted some real fans.

“Guardian uses data to better understand and serve customers, and WorkFusion will bring new data-driven intelligence capabilities into the company,” said Dean Del Vecchio, executive vice president, chief information officer and head of Enterprise Shared Services at Guardian, in a statement. “We look to invest in and deploy RPA and AI technology that can help us leap forward in operations and improve outcomes — WorkFusion has that potential.”

According to chief executive Alex Lyashok, the company now intends to begin looking at acquisition opportunities that can “complement our technology,” he said. “WorkFusion today is focused on banking, financial services and insurance. This problem [of automation] is not endemic to those industries.”

Particularly of interest to the New York-based company are those industries that missed out on the first wave of automation and digitization. “Industries that have already invested in digitization are being very aggressive, but companies that have been very manual and then have not developed a technology program internally,” also represent a big opportunity, Lyashok said.

]]>https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/workfusion-adds-50-million-from-strategic-investors-as-it-bulks-up-for-acquisitions/feed/01645309https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/workfusion-adds-50-million-from-strategic-investors-as-it-bulks-up-for-acquisitions/Amazon Music’s app adds hands-free listening, courtesy of Alexahttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/QPCSgi0IjBg/
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/amazon-musics-app-adds-hands-free-listening-courtesy-of-alexa/#respondThu, 24 May 2018 14:39:30 +0000https://techcrunch.com/?p=1645315In September, Amazon announced it was adding support for Alexa voice control to its Amazon Music app for iOS and Android. However, it was implemented as a tap-to-talk function – something that didn’t quite mesh with the hands-free voice control experience Alexa is known for. Today, Amazon is addressing that problem by rolling out hands-free listening to the Amazon Music app instead, as a result of user feedback.

That means customers can command Alexa to do things like play or pause music, move back and forth between songs, and create playlists by asking, as well as take advantage of Alexa’s more innovative features around playing music by mood, activity, genre, lyrics, artist or song title.

For example, you can ask Alexa to do things like “play the song that goes ‘I’m lovin’ I’m livin’ I’m picking it up” and she’ll play Ariana Grande’s latest single, “No Tears Left to Cry,” notes Amazon. Or you can say things like “Alexa, play that Drake playlist I was listening to last week.”

The update to hands-free voice control could help better establish Amazon’s Music service as a viable competitor to Apple Music, which includes Siri voice control, and Spotify, which began testing its own voice search functionality this March.

Amazon Music is still seen as an underdog in the streaming music battle, compared with these two market leaders, but it may not be as far behind as people though.

Last month, for instance, Billboard reported the number of people subscribing to Amazon Music had doubled over the last six months, and Amazon was claiming “tens of millions” of paid customers. (Apple Music had 40 million paid members as of April and Spotify had 70 million.) An earlier report had also found that Amazon’s service had grown to become the third largest music subscription service worldwide.

Voice control – and specifically the hands-free experience offered by Echo speakers – has been a huge contributor to Amazon Music’s growth, as has been its inclusion with the Amazon Prime membership program.

It makes sense, then, that Amazon would want to offer a similar hands-free experience across devices – especially as voice assistants like Google’s and Apple’s Siri have the advantage of being built-in. (And Google has also just launched its own YouTube Music service, which could be a disruptor to this space.)

Amazon says hands-free Alexa is rolling out starting today on the iOS and Android versions of the Amazon Music mobile app for both Amazon Music Unlimited and Prime Music listeners. The feature can be turned off in the settings if you don’t want to use it.

]]>https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/amazon-musics-app-adds-hands-free-listening-courtesy-of-alexa/feed/01645315https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/amazon-musics-app-adds-hands-free-listening-courtesy-of-alexa/ClassPass plans to add nine international cities by the end of 2018http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/t5yP-ND0V_Y/
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/classpass-plans-to-add-nine-international-cities-by-the-end-of-2018/#commentsThu, 24 May 2018 14:30:46 +0000https://techcrunch.com/?p=1645298ClassPass, the studio fitness platform that gives users access to thousands of boutique fitness classes, has said it plans to expand internationally into nine new countries by the end of 2018. The company’s top priorities are consolidating its position in the UK and launching in three countries in Asia, according to chief executive Fritz Lanman. Lanman declined to disclose which countries the fitness subscription service was targeting.

ClassPass’s further international expansion isn’t exactly a surprise. The company already serves parts of Canada, the UK and Australia alongside its 50 cities within the US. ClassPass also raised a whopping $70 million Series C last year which Lanman tells me was purposefully large to fuel this type of expansion without being dependent on another round of financing.

As part of the expansion initiative, ClassPass has hired Chloe Ross as VP of International. Ross has worked on international strategy at Microsoft and has helped in developing policy in the UK Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit.

In 2014, ClassPass found its footing with a brand new model for the fitness world. The company aggregated fitness classes and studio partners while offering a subscription model for users, letting them pick and play as they choose across a wide variety of classes. In essence, the company brought a media model, not unlike Netflix, to the real world industry of fitness.

Lanman says that this kind of business model innovation has spurred a large number of clones, both domestically and internationally, and that international expansion is integral to cementing ClassPass’s spot at the top of the heap.

As it stands now, ClassPass currently has 9,000 studio partners, but Lanman and founder Payal Kadakia see the opportunity to grow that to 90,000 as the company ventures outside of the U.S.

Moreover, ClassPass has played with the idea of expanding into new verticals for quite some time, with wellness being first in line. But before ClassPass can dive deep into a wellness vertical, it must first solidify its place as a global aggregator of studio fitness.

The company recently unveiled a new at-home workout program called ClassPass Live, letting users stream classes from the comfort of their own home. No word yet on when ClassPass Live will debut in new international markets, Lanman said.

ClassPass has raised a total of $154 million since launch.

]]>https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/classpass-plans-to-add-nine-international-cities-by-the-end-of-2018/feed/11645298https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/classpass-plans-to-add-nine-international-cities-by-the-end-of-2018/So long, StumbleUponhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/MVTrsDFcts0/
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/so-long-stumbleupon/#respondThu, 24 May 2018 14:25:03 +0000https://techcrunch.com/?p=1645326All told, 16 years is a pretty good run in the social media world. After launching in 2002, website discovery platform StumbleUpon is shutting down on June 30. Over its existence, the service racked up 60 billion stumbles for 40 million users, cofounder Garrett Camp wrote in a Medium post this week.

Those of us who wrote for sites at the height of the tool’s power know it was capable of driving a tremendous amount of traffic in its prime. One of StumbleUpon’s greatest strengths was its simplicity, offering up content with a single click. But Camp notes in his post that its simplicity was ultimately its detriment in the ever-changing online world.

eBay bought the service for a reported $75 million in 2007, but failed to keep it relevant. In 2013, the service underwent significant layoffs, allowing Camp to buy a majority share two years later.

“Since starting SU the number of people with internet access has grown nearly 10x, and mobile phones and social media have changed our lives. The number of platforms to share or host content has increased significantly, yet we still need better tools to help us filter through the exploding amount of content on the web, and find signal within the noise. And we’ve learned from SU that while simplicity and serendipity is important, so is enabling contextual curation.”

Those lessons, it seems, will be informing Camp’s product, Mix.com — as will StumbleUpon’s use base. Existing StumbleUpon accounts will be transitioned to Mix ahead of the June 30 deadline.

]]>https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/so-long-stumbleupon/feed/01645326https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/so-long-stumbleupon/Crowd Cow, offering ranch to table meats, picks up $8 million from Madrona, Ashton Kutcherhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/lmCLQMmmzNQ/
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/crowd-cow-offering-ranch-to-table-meats-picks-up-8-million-from-madrona-ashton-kutcher/#respondThu, 24 May 2018 14:00:35 +0000https://techcrunch.com/?p=1645280Most high-end restaurants don’t get their beef from the local grocery store. Well-regarded chefs and restauranteurs build relationships with small farms and family ranchers to procure what’s known in the industry as craft beef.

Just like coffee or chocolate or wine, the smallest differences (type of grass, breed of cow, lifestyle, etc.) can make a big difference in overall taste. But you and I have never had easy access to this beef outside of hitting up a Michelin-star restaurant.

Crowd Cow, based in Seattle, works with small family farms to let users choose their cow and their cut. Crowd Cow then ships this craft beef directly to a user’s home.

Before Crowd Cow, five or six families would have to go in together on more than 500 LBs of beef in order to be a compelling customer to these small farms. That means they need a large meat freezer, upfront cash, and all the time and resources necessary to get the product from the farm to the home.

Crowd Cow founders Joe Heitzeberg and Ethan Lowry realized the whole process would be much better for everyone if they could crowdsource 50 families, instead of four or five, to buy a cow. The company handles logistics and offers users a way to learn about the ranch, the cow, and more via the app.

Today, the company is announcing that it has closed an $8 million Series A funding led by Madrona Venture Group, with participation from Ashton Kutcher of Sound Ventures and existing investor Joe Montana of Liquid 2 Ventures.

Since launch, Seattle-based Crowd Cow has expanded to offer chicken, olive wagyu, and pork and now serves the entire contiguous United States. The company generates more than $1 million in revenue a month and revenue has grown 10x over the last year.

The greater vision is to de-commoditize beef.

The Seattle-based company isn’t the only startup to raise money in an attempt to get people to eat better beef. Earlier this month, Porter Road closed on $3.7 million to go after the market with a similar mission.

Backed by a slew of New York venture firms including Slow Ventures, Max Ventures, BoxGroup, Tribeca Venture Partners and the Collaborative Fund, Porter Road was founded by trained chefs and butchers Chris Carter and James Peisker. Originally working out of a butcher shop in Nashville, Tenn. since 2011, the two partners work with sustainable local farmers to source the best meat.

Both companies are putting a new spin on a model made famous by Omaha Steaks, the meat packer and mail order distributor founded over 100 years ago, which is now pulls in $450 million in revenue a year.

“Before Starbucks and microbrew, coffee was 50 cents and there were a handful of beers and no one really cared,” said Crow Cow’s Heitzeberg. “The reality is that beef is varied. There are 300 breeds, and there are different types of grass in these pastures, and these factors will lead to a very different taste. Beef doesn’t have to be a commodity.”

Crowd Cow plans to use the funding to continue expansion into different proteins and new markets, as well as opening new distribution centers to speed up delivery to customers.

]]>https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/crowd-cow-offering-ranch-to-table-meats-picks-up-8-million-from-madrona-ashton-kutcher/feed/01645280https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/crowd-cow-offering-ranch-to-table-meats-picks-up-8-million-from-madrona-ashton-kutcher/Facebook is asking users worldwide to review their privacy settingshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/ikddF5bwGKk/
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/facebook-is-asking-users-worldwide-to-review-their-privacy-settings/#respondThu, 24 May 2018 13:54:34 +0000https://techcrunch.com/?p=1645286Starting this week, Facebook will begin asking users worldwide to review their privacy settings with a prompt that appears within the Facebook app. The experience will ask you to review how Facebook uses your personal data across a range of products, from ad targeting to facial recognition. This request to review Facebook’s updated terms and your settings follows a similar experience rolled out to users in the European Union as a result of the new user data privacy regulation, GDPR.

However, EU users have to agree to the new terms of service in order to continue using Facebook, Recode point out, after asking Facebook how the worldwide experience differs from the one being shown in Europe.

Elsewhere in the world, users who dismiss the prompt twice will be automatically opted in.

But before you close that window too quickly, you may want to take a look at what Facebook is asking.

In the new prompt, which appears when you visit News Feed, Facebook will allow you to review details about advertising, facial recognition, and the information you’ve chosen to share on your profile.

For example, you may no longer feel comfortable having your religion, political views or relationship information exposed, and the new experience will allow you to change those settings.

As you continue reviewing your information, each screen will walk you through what data is collected and how it’s used, allowing you to make better decisions about Facebook’s use of your data.

Specially, Facebook says the feature will include the following information:

How it uses data from partners to show more relevant advertising

Political, religious, and relationship information you’ve chosen to include on your profile

How it uses face recognition, including for features that help protect your privacy

Updates to its terms of service and data policy (that were announced in April)

If you’ve already disabled some of these settings, you won’t be shown that information or encouraged to turn the features back on.

After you adjust your settings, the changes go into effect immediately and you can adjust them again at any time from Settings or Privacy Shortcuts, the company says.

Though the GDPR is aimed at protecting user data in the EU, Facebook has come under fire for its breach of trust with its user base due to the Cambridge Analytica scandal – where data was hijacked from 87 million users without their consent. The company is now revisiting a lot of its user data privacy practices and making changes as result of both that and GDPR’s requirements.

The experience will start popping up on Facebook this week.

]]>https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/facebook-is-asking-users-worldwide-to-review-their-privacy-settings/feed/01645286https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/facebook-is-asking-users-worldwide-to-review-their-privacy-settings/Sentry raises $16M Series B from NEA and Accel to help developers squash bugs more quicklyhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/Qio4ZlGSSGU/
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/sentry-raises-16m-series-b-from-nea-and-accel-to-help-developers-squash-bugs-more-quickly/#respondThu, 24 May 2018 13:34:08 +0000https://techcrunch.com/?p=1645288Created to help app developers find and fix bugs more efficiently, Sentry announced today that it has raised a $16 million Series B led by returning investors NEA and Accel. Both firms participated in Sentry’s Series A round two years ago.

Co-founder and CEO David Cramer tells TechCrunch that the new round puts Sentry’s post-money valuation at around $100 million. The company recently launched Sentry 9, which, like its other software, is open source. Sentry 9 lets app developers integrate error remediation into their workflows by automatically notifying the developers responsible for that part of the code, letting them filter by environment to hone in on the issue, and manage collaboration among different teams. This reduces the amount of time it takes to fix bugs from “five hours to five minutes,” Sentry claims.

The company will “double down on developers and their adjacent roles,” in particular product teams, Cramer says. Next in the pipeline is tools that will answer more in-depth questions related to app performance management.

“Today we answer ‘this specific thing is broken, why?’ Next we’ll expand that into deeper insights whether it’s ‘these sets of things are broken for the same reason’ as well as exploring non-errors. For example, if you deploy an update to your product and traffic to your sign-up form goes to zero that’s pretty serious, even if you’re not generating errors,” Cramer says.

Sentry’s technology originated as an internal tool for exception logging in Djana applications while its founders, Chris Jennings and Cramer, were working at Disqus. After they open-sourced it, the software quickly expanded into more programming languages. Sentry launched a hosted service in 2012 to answer demand. It now claims to have 9,000 paying customers (including Airbnb, Dropbox, PayPal, Twitter and Uber), be used by 500,000 engineers and process more than 360 billion errors a year.

In a press statement, Accel partner Dan Levine said “Sentry’s growth is a testament to the now-universal truth that app users everywhere expect a flawless experience free of bugs and crashes. Poor user experience kills companies. In order to keep moving forward as quickly as possible, product teams need to know that customers will never leave because of a broken app update. Sentry lets every developer build software that is functionally error-free.”

]]>https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/sentry-raises-16m-series-b-from-nea-and-accel-to-help-developers-squash-bugs-more-quickly/feed/01645288https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/sentry-raises-16m-series-b-from-nea-and-accel-to-help-developers-squash-bugs-more-quickly/InVision design tool Studio gets an app store, asset storehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/Qx62rQck2us/
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/invision-design-tool-studio-gets-an-app-store-asset-store/#respondThu, 24 May 2018 12:43:48 +0000https://techcrunch.com/?p=1645254InVision, the startup that wants to be the operating system for designers, today introduced its app store and asset store within InVision Studio. In short, InVision Studio users now have access to some of their most-used apps and services from right within the Studio design tool. Plus, those same users will be able to shop for icons, UX/UI components, typefaces and more from within Studio.

While Studio is still in its early days, InVision has compiled a solid list of initial app store partners, including Google, Salesforce, Slack, Getty, Atlassian, and more.

InVision first launched as a collaboration tool for designers, letting designers upload prototypes into the cloud so that other members of the organization could leave feedback before engineers set the design in stone. Since that launch in 2011, InVision has grown to 4 million users, capturing 80 percent of the Fortune 100, raising a total of $235 million in funding.

While collaboration is the bread and butter of InVision’s business, and the only revenue stream for the company, CEO and founder Clark Valberg feels that it isn’t enough to be complementary to the current design tool ecosystem. Which is why InVision launched Studio in late 2017, hoping to take on Adobe and Sketch head-on with its own design tool.

Studio differentiates itself by focusing on the designer’s real-life workflow, which often involves mocking up designs in one app, pulling assets from another, working on animations and transitions in another, and then stitching the whole thing together to share for collaboration across InVision Cloud. Studio aims to bring all those various services into a single product, and a critical piece of that mission is building out an app store and asset store with the services too sticky for InVision to rebuild from Scratch, such as Slack or Atlassian.

With the InVision app store, Studio users can search Getty from within their design and preview various Getty images without ever leaving the app. They can then share that design via Slack or send it off to engineers within Atlassian, or push it straight to UserTesting.com to get real-time feedback from real people.

InVision Studio launched with the ability to upload an organization’s design system (type faces, icons, logos, and hex codes) directly into Studio, ensuring that designers have easy access to all the assets they need. Now InVision is taking that a step further with the launch of the asset store, letting designers sell their own assets to the greater designer ecosystem.

“Our next big move is to truly become the operating system for product design,” said Valberg. “We want to be to designers what Atlassian is for engineers, what Salesforce is to sales. We’ve worked to become a full-stack company, and now that we’re managing that entire stack it has liberated us from being complementary products to our competitors. We are now a standalone product in that respect.”

Since launching Studio, the service has grown to more than 250,000 users. The company says that Studio is still in Early Access, though it’s available to everyone here.